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Evolutionary Genomics (Daiki Sato) Lab
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A lab that explores the evolution of diversity in animal behavior through genomics and other approaches.
AboutAbout the lab
Tracing the evolution of animal behavior and its diversity
The lab of Daiki Sato, Project Assistant Professor (Shorei), aims to understand how the psychological makeup and sociality of animals, and their diversity, have evolved.
Centered on evolutionary biology, the lab uses a broad range of methods from bioinformatics, molecular biology, and neuroscience, combined with behavioral experiments and field surveys.
Its goal is to clarify everything from the molecular mechanisms that give rise to behavior to the course of its evolution, and further the effects that behavioral diversity has on societies and ecosystems.
Going forward, the lab hopes to develop its research with an eye toward medical applications such as mental health, and ecological applications such as marine environment conservation.
Key terms
- VMAT1
- A protein involved in monoamine uptake. Its gene is linked to several psychiatric disorders
- Diversity effect
- An improvement in group outcomes beyond simple addition (non-additive), arising from interactions among individuals
- Inverse reinforcement learning
- An information engineering technique that estimates the reward design underlying an animal's behavior from recordings of that behavior
NewsLab news
View More ↗ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to clarify animal behavior from its molecular mechanisms to its evolutionary processes, and to uncover how behavioral diversity affects societies and ecosystems. Daiki Sato, Project Assistant Professor (Shorei), has so far studied humans, rabbits, mice, flies, crayfish, sea slaters, and other animals with a variety of approaches. Below are some of the main research themes.
*Illustrative imageEvolution of human mental diversity
Focusing on variants of the VMAT1 gene, which is linked to several psychiatric disorders, the lab has investigated them using comparative genomics, cell experiments, and genetically modified mice. The work showed the possibility that, in early human evolution, selection pressure acted in the direction of heightened anxiety.
*Illustrative imageEffects of behavioral diversity on groups
Combining large-scale group behavior experiments in Drosophila with genome analysis, the lab has studied the diversity effect, in which behavioral differences among individuals affect group outcomes non-additively. It has also proposed a method (GHAS) for detecting the genetic variants that contribute to this effect.
*Illustrative imagePublic release and analysis of large-scale behavioral data
The lab has released a large amount of Drosophila video and tracking data in a form that is easy to reuse. It has also been involved in building a large-scale behavioral database of mouse models of psychiatric disorders, and uses meta-analysis to evaluate behavioral measures and propose new ones.
*Illustrative imageObserving and quantifying realistic animal behavior
The lab uses methods that deliver stimuli matched to an animal's behavior, such as manipulating a virtual fly shown on a screen to measure the attack behavior of spiders. It is also working on estimating the reward design underlying behavior using inverse reinforcement learning.
MembersFaculty
- Project Assistant Professor (Early Career Support)Daiki Sato
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Italian honeybee brood frame from Langstroth hive” Benlisquare / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Evolution of human mental diversity: “20251019 Replica DNA double helix model Berlin 01” Flocci Nivis / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Effects of behavioral diversity on groups: “Drosophila antopocerus sp” Shchurch / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Public release and analysis of large-scale behavioral data: “BalticServers data center” BalticServers.com / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Observing and quantifying realistic animal behavior: “Jumping spider hunting a grasshopper by Kadavoor” Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Neuroethology and Evolutionary Biology Lab): “Insect predation” Polychronis Rempoulakis / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Behavioral Ecology Lab): “Spinnmilbe Spider mite Tetranychidae Tetranichidi 1” 3d-erlebnis / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Shigenobu Lab (Genome Informatics)): “Wooly beech aphids on a beech leaf” Rosser1954 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Biodiversity Informatics (Nozomi Ytow) Lab): “CSIRO ScienceImage 1332 Pinned Insect Specimens” division, CSIRO / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
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